Damian Lewis Telegraph Interview – Oct 16, 2020

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Big Hitter

By Louis Wise | Telegraph | October 16, 2020

As Billions returns, the actor explains why he isn’t interested in playing 007 – or bothered about turning the big 5-0.

Damian Lewis’s next birthday is the big 5-0: at the risk of seeming indelicate, does it mean people will stop asking if he’s the next James Bond? The actor, star of Homeland, Wolf Hall and Billions, hoots gruffly down the phone. “Well, no! You’re proof of the rule!”

Oh dear. Sorry. I had read this summer he really was dismissing all chances of becoming 007, so it only seemed fair to check. Talking from his home in north London, which he shares with his wife Helen McCrory and their two children, he is happy(ish) to clarify again.

“I don’t want to play Bond. I’m ambitious for different things,” he sighs. “I don’t know who they’ll choose – he’ll be fantastic, or she will be fantastic. But I don’t want to play Bond – even if I was asked!”

Continue reading Damian Lewis Telegraph Interview – Oct 16, 2020

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Vote for Damian to be the Next Bond – Jan 11, 2020

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Who Will Actually Be The Next James Bond? An In-Depth Analysis

by Tom Nicholson | Esquire | January 11, 2020

Who’s going to take over from Daniel Craig as James Bond when he swaps his Walther PPK for a P45? Who knows. This far ahead of Bond 25’s 2020 release you might as well get the Ouija board out to ask the spirit of Cubby Broccoli what he reckons.

Nonetheless, there are a few orthodoxies to point the way. Traditionally, it’s been a role which elevates actors to the A-list rather than being an A-list vehicle. Look at where past Bonds were in their careers when they got the gig: Sean Connery was an undistinguished jobbing actor best known for fighting leprechauns in Disney’s begorrah-and-blimey Irish tale Darby O’Gill and the Little People; George Lazenby was a car salesman turned chocolate advert mascot who bumped into Broccoli at the barbers; Pierce Brosnan had a perm.

You’ll need a history of hefty, critically respected film parts these days too. Daniel Craig had Layer Cake, Munich and a role as Ted Hughes in Sylvia on his showreel before Bond, and the next will need a similarly solid CV as well as having convinced when jumping out of helicopters and the like. Then there’s the general sense of Bond-ishness: Connery “moved like a panther”, as Cubby’s wife Dana Broccoli put it, and that sense of muscular virility has been an essential part of each Bond actor on screen. These are the 12 frontrunners:

Continue reading Vote for Damian to be the Next Bond – Jan 11, 2020

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Radio Times Magazine Interview – Oct 2, 2019

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Could the Next James Bond Be Ginger? The Famous Redhead Rules Himself Out

by Kristy Lang | Radio Times Magazine | Issue: October 5-11, 2019

In a five-star hotel suite high above the City of London, Damian Lewis and I have a ginger bonding moment. As a fellow redhead, I’ve long admired his rise through the acting world. Not many gingers get leading-man status, but after starring in series such as Band of Brothers, Homeland and Billions, Lewis is big in American.

We’re meeting to discuss his first venture into the world of documentaries, fronting and producing a series about spies on the History channel.

Lewis, now 48, was born in London but was sent to boarding school at a young age, which, he thinks, would make him a very good spy.

“If you are sent away from your family at the age of eight, it gives you a rigor, a dissociative quality that is extremely useful for spies because they have to be able to shut down parts of their emotional life. That’s why the British secret services actively recruited public schoolboys. Guy Burgess is the most extreme example of that. He was flamboyant, charming and mostly drunk – how he didn’t reveal what he was doing is a mystery to me.”

Continue reading Radio Times Magazine Interview – Oct 2, 2019

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The Real Stories Behind Some of the World’s Most Intriguing Espionage Cases – Sept 27, 2019

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Spy Wars: kNOw More Secrets

by Nicole Lampert | Weekend Magazine | September 27, 2019

Damian Lewis thinks he would probably make a good spy, partly because of his schooling. Some of Britain’s best known spies – and traitors – went to public school, and the Eton- educated actor isn’t surprised.

‘If you’re sent away from home at the age of eight and you’re asked to cope with that situation, I think there’s an instinctive compartmentalising of one’s emotional life,’ he says.

‘That’s very helpful to a covert life of espionage. It helps you develop a mild sociopathy, which is clearly what spies need to have. Often they’re living multiple lives, not just double ones.

‘I think I’d be a good spy, better than James Bond, who’s a rubbish spy,’ he adds, despite being one of the favourites to take over the role from Daniel Craig.

‘What’s brilliant about Bond is his recovery. Each movie is two hours of him getting himself out of a massive mistake he made quite early on.’

It’s little wonder he’s fascinated by spies. He won acclaim as soldier-turned-potential-terrorist Nick Brody in Homeland, and was cast as MI6 agent Hector in the film adaptation of John le Carré novel Our Kind Of Traitor.

But as outlandish as those stories were, they don’t compare to the twists and turns in the real spy dramas he explores in his first documentary series, Damian Lewis: Spy Wars.

Continue reading The Real Stories Behind Some of the World’s Most Intriguing Espionage Cases – Sept 27, 2019

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Damian Tells of His New Docudrama Series Spy Wars and His Take on Ian Fleming’s Hero – Sept 21, 2019

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The World of Espionage: Traitor or Hero?

by Dalya Alberge | The Guardian | September 21, 2019

His award-winning performances have included the hit espionage drama series Homeland and he is among actors tipped to take over from Daniel Craig as James Bond. Now Damian Lewis has taken on his first role in a television docudrama about spies, whom he describes as “often quite grubby and banal”, a world away from the glamour of 007.

The Hollywood star presents and produces the eight-part show about some of the most significant espionage operations of the last 40 years. The series features undercover agents – some still identified only by their code names – who were persuaded to tell their stories for the first time.

“I find the different reasons for turning traitor or being a hero, depending on your view, are often quite grubby and banal. I’m interested [in] the motives of these spies. That’s the series we’ve tried to make,” Lewis said.

Continue reading Damian Tells of His New Docudrama Series Spy Wars and His Take on Ian Fleming’s Hero – Sept 21, 2019

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Damian Lewis: Financial Times Interview – April 5, 2019

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The ‘Billions’ star on schooldays with David Cameron, playing conflicted characters — and rumours of 007

by Janan Ganesh | Financial Times | April 5, 2019

“What am I?” demands Damian Lewis, in the Yonkers vowels of Bobby Axelrod, the hedge fund manager he plays in Billions. “Chopped liver?” We have not fallen out. It is the presence of the item on the menu that sets up his riff on the Americanism.

The actor you also know as a Renaissance king (Wolf Hall) and an al-Qaeda convert (Homeland) is seated under a wall-mounted ram’s head in Fischer’s, a portal into antiquated Mitteleuropa on London’s Marylebone High Street, where it all but heckles the modernities around it. From a room that suggests an Orient Express dining carriage, Lewis looks out on to a Diptyque, an Aesop and a Bang & Olufsen as I ask him why British actors do so well in America. “It’s luck, it’s innate, it’s a bit of hard work,” he guesses. “It’s nothing to do with being classically trained.”

He admires Christian Bale (“There’s something quite extreme innately in him”) and vies with Tom Hiddleston and Idris Elba in the bookies’ guesswork as to the next James Bond. Politely, he smiles through my thesis that Brits grow up hearing more accents than almost any other nation, honing an ear for them that amounts to a thespian advantage. If he is not quite sold, he is at least open to the idea of performance as a national trait. “Is there a clown in the British character that there isn’t in America? I think there is. There’s a clown in us somewhere.”

Continue reading Damian Lewis: Financial Times Interview – April 5, 2019

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Helen Discusses Damian, Marriage, and Those Bond Rumors – Feb 24, 2019

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What’s the Story Helen McCrory?

by Cole Moreton | Event Magazine | February 23, 2019

She stars opposite a legendary Hollywood heart-throb in the ambitious new BBC drama MotherFatherSon, but Helen McCrory was never going to swoon over Richard Gere. ‘I was a naughty girl,’ says the actress with a chuckle, explaining why she didn’t fall for Gere’s clean-cut charms like so many her age – 14 – when his first hit, An Officer And A Gentleman, came out in 1982.

‘I was a Jimi Hendrix girl. I liked my rock ’n’ roll. I liked the naughty boys – Bob Dylan was going to wake me up in a harem in Morocco. So it wasn’t that I didn’t have a crush on him, I didn’t see the films.’ ‘I knew who he was, of course,’ she says. ‘But I had a crush on Adam And The Ants back then. It was all London, it was all street, it was all edgy, it was all the smell of carbon monoxide and marches and DMs.’

Gere plays a very powerful man with deep secrets. Could she challenge Gere? She nods. ‘It was constantly a work in progress. I come from the British tradition, which is all about the script. The word is God. He comes from an American tradition, where you improvise around it. I’ve never worked with anyone like that.’

She does know – and is proud to say – that she was given her part long before her more famous co-star. ‘I was cast six weeks before Gere was! MotherFatherSon: it’s in that order for a reason, as in every family!’

McCrory and Lewis have a son and a daughter, Gulliver and Manon, who are 11 and 12. They live in a Victorian townhouse in north London, having tried Los Angeles for a while before returning home.

Continue reading Helen Discusses Damian, Marriage, and Those Bond Rumors – Feb 24, 2019

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Damian Would Love To Be Considered for James Bond Role in 2020 – Nov 1, 2018

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Guitars and Bond

by Ryan Parry and James Desborough | Daily Mail | November 1, 2018

Damian Lewis jokes to DailyMailTV that his guitar skills could help him nab the coveted role of 007 over top contenders Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston and Richard Madden. He believes he would make a great James Bond, telling DailyMailTV, “The name’s Bond… Busking Bond.”

His musical talent was revealed by close friend and Spooks star Matthew Macfadyen on the red carpet in Los Angeles at the Britannia Awards. The actor said of Lewis:

“There is no reason he should not be Bond. He is suave and sexy, he has a whiff of danger about him. He can ride motorbikes. He can play the guitar and he can dance. He is a red head and that is different and something unique, so I do not see any reason why not?”

Emmy and Golden Globe winner Lewis has made it clear he wants to be the man to replace Daniel Craig when he hangs up his Walther PPK in 2020. The 47-year-old told DailyMailTV he’d love to be considered for the role, and will ‘work hard’ to convince executive producers what their next 007 could look like.

We here at damian-lewis.com are partial to, “The name’s Bond…Ginge Bond.” But all that matters is for Damian to land the part! For more James Bond readings about Damian, visit our Fan Fun page.

Read the rest of the original article at Daily Mail

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Vote in the James Bond Poll – Aug 20, 2018

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Who is Cornwall’s New James Bond?

by Shannon Hards | Cornwall Live | August 20, 2018

The identity of Daniel Craig’s replacement as 007 is a hot topic at the moment. And given that some of the front-runners likely to take on the role have huge links to the county – the locals thought it would be interesting to find out who Cornwall wants as the next Bond. Idris Elba, Aidan Turner, Tom Hardy, James Norton, Eleanor Tomlinson, Cillian Murphy and Damian have ties to Cornwall in some fashion. In mid-August last year Damian and Helen were spotted in the Padstow area enjoying a drink at the Rock Inn and in July of this year the Lewis-McCrory family attended the Port Eliot festival. Read more about those connections and vote in the poll here.

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Vogue’s Dream Bond Boys – Aug 13, 2018

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Damian Ranks as a 007 Contender, at Least with Vogue

by Katie Berrington and Lauren Milligan | British Vogue | August 13, 2018

British Vogue released a list of dream boys they’d like to see play the next James Bond.

As speculation amped up last week about who will follow in Daniel Craig’s 007 footsteps, Idris Elba sent the rumour mill into overdrive with an “Is he? Isn’t he?” Twitter tease.

“My name’s Elba, Idris Elba,” he posted, sparking mass excitement amongst his followers, before appearing to dismiss the widespread claims by advising people not to believe “the hype”.

Here, we chart the contenders – the likely and the left-field – who could step into the famous spy’s sleek tuxedo for future incarnations of the franchise (when Craig does indeed hang up his Speedos for good).

#3 – Damian Lewis

One of the older candidates in the running at 47, the actor has the gentlemanly air down pat and was an early front runner for the next Bond – particularly thanks to the fervent following he garnered after his acting skills were brought to the masses in Homeland.

Read the rest of the original article at British Vogue

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James Bond: Damian Lewis Responds to Rumours He’ll Replace Daniel Craig as 007 – Feb 2, 2017

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James Bond: Damian Lewis Responds to Rumours He’ll Replace Daniel Craig as 007

Damian Lewis has dispelled rumours he can replace Daniel Craig as the next James Bond.

by Shaun Kitchener – Sunday Express – February 2, 2017

Source: Getty

The former Homeland star, 45, is occasionally listed alongside the likes of Tom Hardy and Aiden Turner as a potential 007 for the future.

However, in a new interview, he poked fun at the ongoing speculation – and appeared to dampen any hopes that he’ll be next to take the iconic role on.

He said simply: “By the time they make a decision [on Bond] I’ll be dead. So no one need worry any more.”

The actor is reported to have gone on to say that he believes Craig will step into the Bond shoes one more time.

Continue reading James Bond: Damian Lewis Responds to Rumours He’ll Replace Daniel Craig as 007 – Feb 2, 2017

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License to Kill Revoked? Damian on Playing Bond – May 5, 2016

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License to kill revoked? Damian Lewis reveals he’s had ‘no contact’ with James Bond bosses over the role despite being a favourite to take over from Daniel Craig

By Jj Nattrass For Mailonline – Daily Mail – May 5, 2016

Ever since Daniel Craig’s stint as James Bond has come under question he’s been among the hot favourites to step into 007s shoes.

But Damian Lewis has revealed that despite being one of the public’s favoured thespians to play the British secret agent, he’s had no contact with studio executives regarding the films.

Speaking to Shortlist about his future prospects, the 44-year-old Homeland star revealed even though he’d be excited to be in the running for Bond he’s not actively pursuing the iconic role.

When asked if his role as an MI6 agent in new spy-thriller Our Kind Of Traitor was a public audition for the role, Damian revealed that Bond was the furthest thing from his mind while he was playing Hector.

Pressed on the topic of Bond, the actor explained that as far as he was concerned the role wasn’t about impressing 007 bosses, saying: ‘Not on my part, no.’

However, he did explain that it would be ‘exciting’ to be the new incarnation of Ian Fleming’s famous spy. Talking about the prospect of being offered the job, Damian conceeded it would be a thrill to carry a license to kill.

‘Well, it would be very exciting,’ he admitted. ‘But, you know actors never lose the excitement of being offered any job. It’s always exciting when you get the phone call.

However he also explained that he thought there was a ‘slight hysteria’ attached to the role.

Continue reading License to Kill Revoked? Damian on Playing Bond – May 5, 2016